1. I'm not sure "denial" is the best word for it. I mean, how many gay adolescents would want to "deny" they are straight, unless they're goin to a Quaker school or some shit. I'd think most school-age gay kids would deny the opposite. You remember the obviously gay kids in junior high as well as I do, and it was not a pleasant experience for them (as the creepy book somewhat accurately relates). In high school it gets a little better for them because they can often find a niche hanging out with the drama department kids (yeah, I know I'm veering into stereotype territory here, but for gay young men, it's often true), but it still sucks for them in a lot of ways.
You'd think, but that's not reality. Many children who are sexually abused are told to believe that their sexual encounters were a good thing. So when a child is seen by a psychiatrist, the child doesn't know what sexuality he/she belong to so they keep telling the counselor what they were conditioned to believe about their sexuality. And I wasn't talking about Junior High and HighSchool. In my previous post I said that most kids discover their own sexuality later in life. That usually happens during High School years.
2. Why force it? Let's say their sexual orientation does not change after they come to terms with the environmental factors (child sexual abuse) which may have led to it-- if it doesn't involve paedophilia then who cares?
If they don't change, means that they are naturally gay. Nothing wrong with that. But I did say that sexuality is a complex thing which can be determined by natural choice or a conditioned choice.
I don't think your idea that they have been "programmed" to be gay is quite correct.
It's not my idea. I was coming from a Freudian perspective. I only quoted cause I'm a psych. major.
It's just that environmental factors, both good and bad, shape our behavior. If the behavior itself is not bad, then there is no reason to encourage someone to change it, much less force them to change it.
A lot of the mental delusions psychiatrists treat are harmless behaviors. But they still treat them to pull them out of fantasy to live their life as they naturally would want to.
If, say, a 13-year-old, comes to terms with their sexual abuse, understands that it's wrong, not because it was gay shit, but because it was rape, and understands this may have shaped their sexual orientation, then the choice of how they respond to it is up to them, not their crazy-ass religious parents or the counselor they hired to "fix" their kid's sexual orientation.
I never said it wasn't their choice. I'm against the religious counselors, but I do defend the psychiatrists who do try to change people's behaviors regardless of how needless the average Joe may think the treatment is.
And also, to respond to what I put in bold, at that point, it is the job of a psychiatrist to help the child discover their sexuality. If the child really is gay, great. If not, also great. But the treatment should be forced in order to discover such.
As long as they understand adults fucking kids is wrong, wrong, wrong, and that a horrible thing happened to them then it's all good.
Wow. I wish I lived in a simple world where everything was just dandy like that. The truth of the matter is, after they realize that what has happened to them is rape, then what usually comes next is hate. If it's not treated, then other harmful behaviors starts to storm up inside the child which translates as crimes of different degree when they are adults. So no, it's not just all good.
If you accept the Kinsey scale (which I do-- despite Kinsey's flawed methodology, enough later methodologically-sound studies have backed up the general concept of sexuality occurring on a spectrum), then, were it not for social customs, those who are 0s (strictly straight) and 5s (strictly gay) are probably in the minority, and there's a wide spectrum of sexual practices that kid could orient towards, and I believe in a society which allows people to explore that without shame. Me, I'll be stickin at 0 because that's what I'm comfortable with, but if I were "naturally" a 1 or a 2 (which is quite possible), it would be nice if I had been raised in an environment which did not discourage me from exploring the full range of potential sexual experiences.
Please explain to me how the Kinsely scale fits into our discussion. I wasn't arguing against it.
Topic: Disturbing children's book